The invention relates to a connector for optical fibres.
Although optical fibres have been known for a long time, they have only recently been used to an increasing extent in communication engineering for a plurality of applications, such as FDDI networks (fiber distributed dam interface), Local Area Networks, computer interconnections, telephone exchanges, industrial control devices, transmission devices for television cameras. It is well-known that the optical fibres may be of the multimode type or the monomode type, i.e. dependent upon the size of the core diameter of the fibre either a plurality of modes can propagate or only one mode can propagate. In cores having a very small diameter of only 10 .mu.m or less only one mode can propagate. Monomode fibres require high-precision connectors between the individual fibres or between the fibre end and the light source, having tolerances in the .mu.m range. These connectors generally consist of two identical rotationally locked connector portions comprising a coupling member with an elastic sleeve. To optimize the transmission, the end faces of the connector portions are in direct contact with each other. Since the present optical fibres exhibit a very low degree of attenuation (approximately 0.2 dB/kin) the inevitable losses in connectors, referred to as insertion losses, must be minimized. According to the latest developments a lower limit of approximately 0.2 dB should be attainable in practice.
In the case of cable connections for use in the communication field, for example a HDTV camera and its processor unit, the interconnected optical fibres may have lengths up to several kilometers and depending upon the application said fibres may, in pan, be composed of fibre sections of different lengths which are interconnected by connectors. In order to bridge the distance between camera and processor unit with the greatest flexibility when recording various events on location, for example outdoor sport events, it has proved to be advantageous to interconnect a suitable number of prefabricated optical fibre sections comprising connectors. When said optical fibre sections are rapidly interconnected, it is possible, however, that impurities such as dust or dirt may cause damage to the optical interfaces of the mating connector portions which are very sensitive to impurities.. In that case the optical fibre sections comprising the damaged connector portions must be replaced by optical fibre sections comprising undamaged connector portions, because replacing the connector portions at the ends of monomode optical fibres can only be carried out by the manufacturer. However, this is very expensive and time-consuming.